Sunday, July 31, 2011

Unresolved Questions

Like any fan of horror movies, I have a number of unresolved questions regarding this genre. These are a few of them. If you can venture guesses as to the answers, or if you have questions of your own, please leave comments.

1. In The Wolf Man, Claude Rains ties up his son Lon Chaney Jr. and leaves him alone to force him to overcome his notion that he is a werewolf. Leaving aside the question of whether bondage in solitary confinement is a useful psychological tool, there is also this oddity: Rains ties him up near the window so that he can have a view of the hunt for the killer wolf. Now how good a view could Rains expect his son to have through a single window? Wouldn't everyone be sort of spread out, out of sight?

2. In The Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels, why don't we ever see a creaturette? Where there's one creature, there tend to be others. It's called a population. Why does this creature need to turn to Julie Adams for companionship?



3. Just about everything in Exorcist II: The Heretic is confusing. Why is there a single big locust flying ahead of the swarm of other little locusts? Does Kitty Winn burst into flame, or did I dream that? And what's with the wacky helmets used to peer into other people's minds? Are those FDA-approved, or what?

4. At the end of The Omen, little Damien appears to have been adopted by the President of the United States. At the beginning of the first sequel, Damien: Omen II, it turns out somebody totally different, William Holden, has adopted him. Why did they change the story-line from movie one to movie two? Could it be that they realized that even if the President did adopt Damien, that would not ensure that Damien would become president, since, as a rule, American presidents are not selected on a hereditary basis?

5. In Hostel, is it really good surgical practice to care for a person whose eyeball is hanging loose by cutting off the eyeball? I just wonder.

George Ochoa
Author
Deformed and Destructive Beings: The Purpose of Horror Films

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